Postal Service Announces 14 New Issuances for 2025
What do musician Allen Toussaint and comedic actress Betty White have in common? Both will appear on U.S. postage stamps in 2025!
Each autumn brings an announcement from the U.S. Postal Service of many of the stamps it will issue in the coming year. The lineup for 2025, as usual, runs the gamut of subjects and includes some delightful surprises.
Postage stamps are often seen as miniature works of art, and one might even call them tiny book covers because they represent a wealth of information about so many topics. In addition, as Stamp Services Director Lisa Bobb-Semple has said, stamps “allow us to show what’s important to us as we carefully select which stamp adorns our mailpieces.”
American Culture and Heritage
Bobb-Semple’s statement could not be truer than for the stamps honoring the nation’s multifaceted culture and heritage.
In its first issuance of 2025, the Postal Service will celebrate the Year of the Snake with the sixth stamp in the Lunar New Year series. Decorated masks play an important role in the dragon or lion dances often performed during Lunar New Year parades, and this stamp features a three-dimensional snake mask constructed by artist Camille Chew. For this project, Chew cut, scored, and folded hand-printed paper into shape, then embellished the front with acrylic paint and other paper elements, and covered the back with a layer of papier-mâché. USPS art director Antonio Alcalá designed the stamp with a photograph of the mask by Sally Andersen-Bruce.
Also awaiting us in 2025, the 48th stamp in the beloved Black Heritage series will honor New Orleanian Allen Toussaint (1938–2015), a virtuoso pianist, singer, songwriter, composer, arranger, and producer responsible for scores of hits across multiple genres. Art director Ethel Kessler designed the stamp using a 2007 photograph taken by Bill Tompkins in New York City.
Betty White (1922–2021), an icon of American television, shared her wit and warmth with viewers for seven decades — including roles in The Golden Girls and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The comedic actress, who gained younger generations of fans as she entered her 90s, was also revered as a compassionate advocate for animal welfare. For this stamp, designed by art director Greg Breeding, Dale Stephanos created a digital illustration based on a 2010 photograph by Kwaku Alston.
Natural Beauty
The American public and collectors love stamps that show off the beauty, variety, and vastness of our country’s natural spaces, along with their flora and fauna. We can look forward to several issuances in this category in 2025.
The Postal Service will commemorate the centennial of the Appalachian Trail with a pane of 15 stunning photographic views from the 14 states through which the trail passes, from Maine to Georgia. The 15th stamp shows a “green tunnel,” a nickname for stretches of trail through dense forest. Covering almost 2,200 miles of footpath along one of Earth’s most ancient mountain ranges, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail lies within easy reach of large metropolitan areas of the East Coast. Alcalá designed the stamps with images from various photographers.
A new booklet of 20 stamps will feature five different images of iconic winter landscapes from around the country. Various photographers provided their work to the issuance, designed by Kessler.
Recipients of bulk mailings will enjoy American Vistas, two new stamps presenting stylized, minimalist scenes of mountains and a beach. Featuring screen prints by DKNG Studios made from vector illustrations, the stamps were designed by Breeding.
The innocence of young wildlife reminds us of that precious age when the world is new and full of wonder. In 2025, a new pane of 10 First-Class Mail® stamps will offer whimsical, eye-catching designs of baby wild animals of the U.S., with visual elements suggesting the habitat or behavior of each one. Tracy Walker designed and created the artwork by digitally layering colored shapes on solid backgrounds. Breeding art-directed the project.
A new stamp for irregularly sized envelopes will highlight the luna moth (Actias luna), considered one of the most beautiful moths in the U.S. Artist Joseph Scheer created the composite image for the stamp using a high-resolution scanner with extended focus to capture multiple layers of a preserved moth. Art director Derry Noyes designed the stamp.
Five new postcard stamps depicting colorful leaves from trees abundant in this country evoke a seasonal walk in the woods. The issuance was designed by Alcalá with work from five different photographers.
A beloved addition to backyard and formal gardens alike, dahlias radiate warmth, vitality, and cheer. Ten closeup views of this gorgeous bloom will be the focus of a new booklet of 20 stamps. Breeding designed the issuance with photographs by Denise Ippolito.
The compass rose reproduced on the new, round First-Class Mail International® stamp carries with it a bit of history. Lucia Wadsworth, the aunt of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, made the colorful drawing in her geography notebook when she was 10 years old in 1794. Breeding designed this stamp.
Old Favorites
U.S. Flag, conveniently available in many formats, continues a long tradition of honoring the Stars and Stripes. Alcalá designed the stamp with a photograph by Doug Haight.
New stamped card designs are issued every few years for customers who want to send postcards with postage already imprinted. The latest version features Libby VanderPloeg’s illustration of a two-masted schooner, based on a photo of the schooner Columbia, a 2014 replica of the original built in 1923. Alcalá was the art director.
Finally, who can resist love? Alcalá was convinced that a drawing by Keith Haring (1958–1990), rendered in the artist’s iconic, simplified style, would make for the perfect new stamp in the popular Love series. “The non-specificity of the figures allows a variety of people to see themselves in this stamp,” Alcalá says. “Partners getting married, celebrating an anniversary, siblings sending each other a heartfelt greeting, or even party planners setting a positive tone for their event.”